158 CHAPTER SEVENwhich spirits meddle in one's life can be attributed either to one's general
stock of karma or to particular actions by which one has harmed or helped a
particular spirit in this life or the past. One's birth chart is essentially a diagram
displaying the strengths and weaknesses of one's karma inherited from past
lives. Therefore, an entire host of problems may be dealt with by adding to
one's stock of merit in general or, in cases when a particular spirit is looking
for repayment for past wrongs, by making merit and dedicating it to the spirit.
Thus, merit is power, a means for controlling the forces of the world on all
levels so as to gain happiness in this life and the next. The role of this power
explains the importance of merit in the eyes of the typical peasant, and the
need in human society for a place where merit can be most effectively made.
Simply because the doctrine of karma blankets all other forms of power,
however, does not mean that merit making entirely supplants other means of
trying to acquire power, such as occult rituals or propitiatory offerings. The
drawback of merit is that it tends to be of a general, rather than a specific, na-
ture, and there is no control over how quickly its results will be felt. It is the
most invisible and impersonal of the invisible powers. Thus there are occa-
sions-as when a spirit enters one's dreams and makes a specific demand-
when the typical peasant, instead of making merit, will turn for help to a ritual
specialist, either a lay person who has acquired the appropriate knowledge, or
a monk who has learned some occult rituals on the side.
General familiarity with rituals, both animistic and Brahmanical, has also
influenced the typical peasant's view of karma in that merit is often seen as
lying not in the quality of the intent behind an action but in the proper ritual-
ized performance of acts that are defined as meritorious. This ritualization of
karma is one of the, great ironies of syncretic Buddhism. As we learned in
Chapter 1, one of the Buddha's primary achievements was to divorce the doc-
trine of karma from its purely ritual role in the Vedic worldview and to apply
it to morality in general. Typical Thai peasants, however, confess that the qual-
ity of their intentions is very difficult to control, and thus they find a sense of
security in returning karma to the more tractable and well-defined area of rit-
ually prescribed action.
The ritualization of merit may be illustrated with a typical merit-making
ritual on the morning of the Uposatha, which occurs on the days of the full,
new, and half moons. The primary function of the ritual is to make merit by
presenting food to the monks and listening to a sermon. Monks and villagers
gather in separate zones of the main meeting hall. Before the food is presented,
the villagers pay respect to the Buddha-image and request the Triple Refuge
and Five Precepts from the chief monk. The reason for requesting the Triple
Refuge is that if any of the villagers have had recourse to animist or Brahman-
ical practices since the last Uposatha service, their allegiance to the Buddha,
Dharma, and Sangha has been tarnished. This is their chance to renew alle-
giance with no questions asked. The reason for requesting the Five Precepts is
that a donation is said to bear the greatest fruit if both the donor and the re-
cipient live by the precepts. A typical villager finds it very difficult to abide by
the precepts in the course of daily life, and may have little intention of trying